National University of Singapore

Toong Jin Lam

Tie Yan

Jiangyan He

Yanfei Xu

Zhiyuan Gong

Bensheng Ju

Jeak Ling Ding

Nguan Soon Tan

BoW Ho

Four zebrafish gene promoters, which are skin specific, muscle specific, skeletal muscle specific and ubiquitously expressed respectively, were isolated and ligated to the 5' end of the EGFP gene. When the resulting chimeric gene constructs were introduced into zebrafish, the transgenic zebrafish emit green fluorescence under a blue light or ultraviolet light according to the specificity of the promoters used. Thus, new varieties of ornamental fish of different fluorescence patterns, e.g., skin fluorescence, muscle fluorescence, skeletal muscle-specific and/or ubiquitous fluorescence, are developed.

Chimeric gene constructs for generation of fluorescent transgenic ornamental fish

Sale of fluorescent transgenic ornamental fish

Sale of transgenic fish that express gene encoding fluorescent protein

Four zebrafish gene promoters, which are skin specific, muscle specific, skeletal muscle specific and ubiquitously expressed, respectively, were isolated and ligated to the 5' end of the EGFP gene. When the resulting chimeric gene constructs were introduced into zebrafish, the transgenic zebrafish emit green fluorescence under a blue light or ultra-violet light according to the specificity of the promoters used. Thus, new varieties of ornamental fish of different fluorescence patters, e.g., skin fluorescence, muscle fluorescence, skeletal muscle-specific and/or ubiquitous fluorescence, are developed.

A universal secretory signal originally derived from a piscine vitellogenin (Vtg) gene is inserted into various expression vectors for driving the secretion of the recombinant protein into the culture medium. This enhances the detection, quantification and downstream scaled-up purification of a recombinant protein of interest. The secretory signal system is very versatile, being conveniently and widely applicable to an array of heterologous host cells such as bacteria, yeast, insect, piscine, and mammalian cell lines (e.g., COS, CHO, NIH/3T3). The said secretory system is also applicable as a reporter vector for secretion of reporter proteins/enzymes, thus, enabling the detection of the reporter proteins (e.g., CAT, GFP) in the culture medium.

Isolated nucleic acids encoding a secretory signal for expression and secretion of heterologous recombinant proteins

Growing community of inventors

Singapore, Singapore

Toong Jin Lam